July 23, 1999
Web posted at: 9:08 a.m. EDT (1308 GMT)

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Peace talks between Sudan's government and rebels ended Friday without a deal to renew a cease-fire sought by aid workers for famine-stricken, war-ravaged parts of the south, a development a U.N. relief agency called "alarming."

Sudanese officials told a news conference that the government had rejected the rebels' offer to reinstate for three months the cease-fire that expired last week in the province of Bahr el Ghazal. The government said it would agree only to a comprehensive end to fighting in the region.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the rebels' political wing, wants to give humanitarian workers easier access to the province and other areas.

"For humanitarian aid agencies this is extremely alarming news," said Brenda Barton, spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program in Nairobi. "It could not have come at a worse time.

"The population is still extremely fragile after last year's famine," she said, adding that food supplies were low at this time of year as people awaited the next harvest in a couple of months.

But Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman said a humanitarian cease-fire in certain areas would "intensify the fighting in other areas."

The negotiations were aimed at ending a 16-year conflict, exacerbated by famine that has left more than 1.5 million people dead since 1983. The civil war has complicated already-deep religious and cultural rifts between Sudan's mainly Muslim Arab north and its predominantly black, animist or Christian south.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Bonaya Godana presided over the peace talks at a government training center outside Nairobi. Another round of formal talks is expected in 60 days.

But observers expected little from the talks: The warring sides were deeply divided on key points, including determining the exact boundaries for the south, how to set up a vote on self-determination and whether the region should be exempt from Islamic law.

Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, said an overall cease-fire can come only when more contentious issues are resolved.

"You don't put the cart before the horse," he said.

The cease-fire was first agreed in 1998, but there have been repeated violations this year, with government planes reported to have bombed civilians in Bahr el Ghazal on several occasions.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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